Chimerically
by iphianeira
Summary: A collection of drabbles telling the stories of various characters.
1. isla black

_For the School of Prompts Challenge, with the prompt "bay"._

* * *

 _Keep it at bay._

 _Keep it hidden, deep inside you; keep it like a secret gift_

 _that won't be given for decades,_

 _not until your soul leaves your body._

 _Isla has never quite been able to let the magic go._

Even if she has left the wizarding world behind, Isla has never quite forgotten it. Bob conquers everything else in terms of what she needs, and therefore she has forced any mention of magic away from her, but desperately and very unfortunately, she can't help but remember, remember, remember the feeling of a wand in her grasp, recall the image of her own holly-and-unicorn-hair instrument twirling gracefully through the air. The magical world could have been so different, and the memory still triggers a twinge of disappointment that lasts for hours every time she allows herself to think deeply about what has gone away.

Perhaps she is doomed to remember her heritage forever.


	2. draco malfoy

_For the Ultimate Battle! Competition, with the prompt, "Sir, is this your cane?"_

* * *

Draco liked Diagon Alley. Wizards and witches always meandered around, wearing robes in vibrant shades of magenta or sunshine yellow. Everyone seemed so nice, and the things in the shop windows provided a colorful distraction from whatever his mother was saying at the moment. Draco didn't like listening to his mother, especially when she took him to Knockturn Alley.

Knockturn gave Draco no fascinating stimuli, and in comparison to the lively Diagon, it was a terrible place. No brilliant colors painted the walls, and the shop windows displayed skulls and things that Draco saw enough of at home.

"Draco, are you listening?" said his mother, to which he shrugged. "Oh, Draco… Four years old and already not listening! Oh, Draco. Draco! Don't pick up that cane!"

But it was too late. A cane had fallen from the belt of a hooded figure, and overwhelmed with curiosity, Draco had grabbed it from the ground. So what if the man looked really scary? Draco had to give it back!

"Just leave it on the ground," Narcissa ordered, but Draco didn't like listening to his mother, so even if it terrified him, he would return the cane to the scary man.

The cane was a deep, deep black, and it had skulls on it, and the man was hooded, and it was scary - but Draco had to do it! He was polite, and he would do it.

"Sir, is this your cane?" he shouted to the man.

The hooded figure turned, drawing his hood down over his face, and approached Draco. "Yes, it is," he said, voice low.

Draco recognized that voice.

He looked up at the face of the man, a face that was not entirely covered in pitch black fabric, and his mouth opened wide.

"Father?"


	3. lilith goyle

_For the Ultimate Battle! Competition, with the prompt "Write for one of Lamia's OCs."_

 _Lilith belongs entirely to Lamia of the Dark, her creator. I am merely borrowing her. You can find Lilith in stories such as "In Memoriam," "Temperance," and "With Me, Into the Dark."  
_

 ** _Trigger warning for self-harm._**

* * *

She opened the scars again when she reached the age of sixteen.

Vine-like scars had graced both wrists since Lilith was nine years old, when she took a knife and traced patterns of ivy into her soft flesh; the knife haid lain, forgotten, on the ground upon the approach of a young Thestral foal, a colt. She never remembered to retrieve the bloodied blade, and it was only when Lilith departed from her home for a walk during a distinctively loathsome summer holiday that she stumbled upon its hilt buried in the rocky soil.

For weeks now, the sight of the dirty knife had haunted the thoughts of the young woman who could no longer be called a girl, despite her youthful number of years. Every time she read the cards, they warned ominously of an imminent loss of great strength, and many evenings found her staring at the dagger, imagining the way it would feel to draw it across her wrists once again.

She does not know quite how she gave in to temptation, but one late night the sudden urge that it needed to be done eclipsed all other thought, and she discovered herself with the still-sharp blade in her hand, tracing the ivy vines she had drawn so long ago.

Lilith could have easily dethroned the scars; she had crowned them there with a dagger, after all, not a villainous curse – yet she left them there, never to quite know why.

She never touched a knife to her skin again.


	4. lilith & alastor

_Written for the Ultimate Battle! Competition, with the prompt "Write about one of Lamia's OCs."_

 _Temperance, also known as Lilith, is completely the property of the lovely Lamia of the Dark. Find her in stories such as "Temperance," "With Me, Into the Dark," and "In Memoriam."_

* * *

The day of her trial, Alastor excuses himself from the Auror Hall of the Ministry and rides the lift down, down, down to the rooms in which the judges shall sentence her, he knows, to Azkaban.

He does not quite know what has compelled him to come. He knows the outcome already. Temperance – Lilith is her true name, but he will always know her otherwise – will not deny her lord for the great reward of freedom, and she will waste away, lost and alone, beside her demented mentors and twisted friends. Still, the trial has drawn him to itself; perhaps his hour will be wasted, and yet Alastor cannot find it in himself to mind.

Temperance is gaunt as she is beautiful, folded into herself on the room's only chair, ashen hair and pale skin providing a stark contrast to the dull, dark stone of the walls and the judges' black satin robes. Her fate has not yet become her. A deck of cards emerges from her pocket as she draws her hand from it, and she selects three, revealing the faces of each one. Alastor suspects that she has already known the prediction of the chosen cards – and yet her reaction to them unnerves him. He watches her expressions changing like clockwork: first confusion, then repulsion, and finally a steady, resigned glare at the judges sitting upon their black wooden benches.

She will never be free from the judges, but moreso, she will never be free from the cards.


	5. alecto & voldemort

The fanatical obsession with Lord Voldemort of Bellatrix Lestrange was common knowledge to any Death Eater, though none entirely knew whether or not her fascination was romantic. Truthfully, most of the Dark Lord's followers held some sort of desire for him – for his approval, for his passion, for his regard. None but Amycus Carrow, however, knew of his sister's captivation with the man – and she thought it best that way.

Alecto had truly become obsessed with him, and though she grew tired of his ever-implied rejection, she simply could not change. Many times she had tried, naturally, and yet Alecto could not shake his image from her head. As she drifted into sleep she fell into elaborate fantasies in which he professed his great, undying passion for her, and they ran away together – but such dreams were as improbable as they were fantastical. The Dark Lord Voldemort would never love someone such as she.

So Amycus chastised her every evening when he peered into her rooms late into the night and found her wide awake, contemplating a future with the leader of her cause. "A _lec_ to," he would say, derisive, "he will never, _ever_ love you. The Dark Lord cannot love. Are you not aware of that unmistakeable, elementary fact?"

It was true, and she could not deny that she knew it. The Dark Lord had unimaginable power, fantastic wealth through his countless followers, and only the true beliefs. He knew what was right, and he knew that he could make things right, and yet – he was flawed.

Alecto knew that she was better than him – that _she_ , unlike her infatuation, could love. But that did not stop her from loving him.


	6. padma & luna

_For the Stratego Competition, with the prompt horror. **Warning for body horror that is probably quite mild, but to be safe, I shall warn.**_

* * *

To Padma, only Luna is left.

Parvati is dead; Morag, Su, and Terry were killed mere days after Parvati was. A friend of Padma's father discovered he and his brother only weeks ago. Every single one of Padma's friends and relatives and mere acquaintances has been found battered and bloodied, entirely motionless, exactly three days after their faces in photographs became pale and translucent.

Luna and Padma, though, have somehow found themselves exempt from the bloody plague, and Padma thus finds a way to smile through this pain, because she loves Luna and even her eccentricities. They will make it through together, and there will be a day in a new, different life that Padma and Luna won't even think about their previous life – the one that was destroyed by some twisted murderer who left nearly every one of Padma's associates dead on their living room floors. She will never forget finding Parvati's mutilated body. And yet – she desperately hopes that she someday will.

Padma doesn't quite know why Luna has been spared, but she's glad that she won't be alone.

She walks through the corridors of the house she has shared with Luna after years upon years of companionship. The photographs on either side have been taken down, a coarse reminder of the dead, all faces but Luna's and Padma's translucent and ghost-white – all but one single photograph that hangs in a sleek black frame.

The picture is of Padma and Luna, together one autumn evening in the mountains, and Padma analyzes it daily to remember as much as she can of the good things. Today is no exception; Padma watches the photograph as if to keep quite sure that its subjects will not move.

And then the photograph changes.

Padma shrieks.

Luna's grinning photograph face turns pale, showing behind her the mountain flowers and the final remnants of snow upon the Alpine grass, and it is anything but beautiful.

(So three days later, when Padma finds Luna, gored through the chest, she knows she has expected it.)


	7. orion & walburga

_For the Ultimate Battle! Competition, with the prompt Walburga/Orion; for the Stratego Competition, with the prompt hope._

* * *

Walburga is astounding, and Orion loves her. Never before has he met a woman so utterly impassionate about what she believes. She believes the right things, too – none of that filthy "Muggles deserve rights" rubbish. And, truthfully, she's _gorgeous_ , with long, lovely white-blonde hair and clear blue eyes the color of cut crystal and the purest, clearest, whitest skin… Aphrodite did not refrain from giving Walburga more beauty than goddesses themselves.

He has not quite discerned, however, from her reserved behavior in their house, whether or not she loves him in return.

For days and weeks and months on end, Orion ponders this horrific thought, holed up in his study. He wonders whether or not someone such as Walburga could even possibly love him, or if his thoughts are only wishful, not probable. And yet – he still has hope, and he will _always_ have hope, he knows, because Walburga is beautiful.

It is during one of these times contemplating the possibility of Walburga's love, on a snowy winter afternoon that has left Orion's wife without the ability to leave the house, when Walburga knocks on the door of his study and enters after his surprised "Come in!" His thoughts immediately begin rushing to the front of his mind, and he wonders why Walburga would come to his study, did something happen, is she infertile, is she going to die –

"Orion," she demands, "do you love me?"

"With all my soul, Walburga," Orion answers.

"Well, you never say so! Fool," Walburga says, shaking her head. "You're always in this dark study, reading some book or another about the history of Muggle lynching – which is certainly _interesting_ , but do you never wish to do what we were meant to do when they married us – produce a good Pureblooded heir, raise him, do our part in the Wizarding World to keep us Pureblood elite far better than the rest of them?"

Orion shakes his head. "Not if you don't love me, Walburga."

"Oh, but I do!" she exclaims, indignant. "How could you ever think otherwise? You're complete fool."

He's not quite sure he believes her, but nevertheless, _he_ loves _her_ …

"So about that Pureblood heir you wished to raise," he begins, and she laughs. But later that afternoon, when they relax into their bedsheets, he cannot believe that she would love anyone but him, and he will always and forever have hope.


End file.
